Before Reality Swallows You
by Clementive
Summary: Mage Kurenai Yuuhi chose Sakura to dress in the enchanted robes of the Red Mages of Illusion, but all magic comes with a price. Sakura-centric. Mentor & Protégée relationship.


_**Before Reality Swallows You**_

_**Summary: Kurenai chose Sakura to dress in the enchanted robes of the Red Mages of Illusion, but all magic comes with a price. Sakura-centric. Fanatsy!AU.**_

_**No one was giving me Sakura as a genjutsu user, so I took matters in my own hands. Sorta. **_

_**Enjoy, guys! :)**_

-X-

The gong announcing visitors still vibrated, and it rattled her bones.

Sakura panted, trailing behind the other children as they assembled in the courtyard. The air was stiff, cutting, the sun disappearing behind low clouds in streaks of golden pink. With her small frame, she easily cleared herself a path to the front, her elbows moving, brushing against soft belly and hard muscles.

Two of the older orphans opened the gates with difficulty, the uneven darkened wood catching in the ground. They rest their entire bodies against the rotten slats.

Sakura had frozen, watching them. She took a step toward them, her palms prickling, hot, when Karui grabbed her hand.

"_Come on!_" Karui said briskly, her gold eyes flashing with excitement, and pulled her toward the front of the crowd.

"HURRY UP!" The High Mistress Anko yelled.

With her jewelled hand she rearranged her headdress, and smoothed her ceremony dress.

Horses and wheels of the carriage pounded on the road, tremors in the ground they could feel. Across the deepening pink of the sky, a thickening cloud of caked dirt and dust bellowed, growing steadily. Sakura straightened her cotton kimono, her naked feet sinking into the softened ground. She stood on the tip of her toes, and accidentally elbowed her Karui to get a better view.

"Stop it!" Karui hissed, stiffing a yawn, before pushing her back down. "It'll come here!"

With flushed cheeks, Sakura gave her an apologetic smile, and her heels sank back into the mud.

High Mistress Anko turned briskly toward them, her dark clothes whipping around her. She pointed her fan at the children, her breath wheezing.

"One straight line, please!" she bellowed, and the children shoved each other aside, arguing in drowsy voices.

"What's with her?" Karui growled.

Sakura tugged at her sleeve.

"Look... It's a mage's crest," Sakura muttered.

The children shifted excitedly, whispering to each other. If a mage picked them in their household, they would never have to worry again about food or money. It wouldn't matter that they had no names, no respectable family.

They would have a mage crest. Power.

"QUIET!"

The children stopped talking at once.

"Now, you listen to me. Red Mage Kurenai Yuuhi will arrive soon to visit the orphanage. Don't look at her in the eyes, or you'll be in a coma for days. Understood?"

"Yes, High Mistress Anko," they recited.

Briefly, High Misstress Anko locked eyes with Sakura, her mouth twisted, as if she wanted to add something. Her jaw clenched, and she turned back toward the opened gates.

Karui gripped Sakura's hand, squeezing it. Her palm was cool against hers.

The carriage stopped inside the court of the orphanage. Its wood was engraved with climbing plants, that spun around a red ruby, the crest of the Red mages. Sakura nudged Karui, pointing at the quivering leaves obscuring the windows.

The profile of a woman was faintly visible between the leaves.

High Mistress Anko stepped forward bowing stiffly.

The children imitated her after some hesitation.

The door opened, and the air shimmered, oppressive. A heel touched the ground. The mud rippled. Grass grew. The air spun flowery around them, sweet and soft wind playing in their hair.

Sakura's ears rang. Her chest struggled to raise. Karui's hand slipped through hers.

"Welcome, Red Mage Yuuhi."

"Thank you, High Mistress. It has been a while, hasn't it?" Her voice sounded like rustling leaves.

They talked in low voices to each other, laughing quietly. They started walking toward the line of orphans and the flora grew around the children. They flinched away, in slowed haltered movement, swatting at the bees and growing leaves, but touching nothing. High Mistress Anko muttered something in the mage's ear.

Sakura startled.

A red rose bloomed at her feet.

Her head inclined toward the ground, she could only see the bottom of the red robes. They sizzled, tongues of fire exciting the growing rose.

"Look at me," Mage Yuuhi said and gripped her chin.

Instinctively, Sakura pressed her eyes tightly shut. Her bottom lip trembled. Pain flared in her palms, her skin boiling, smoking.

"Do as you're told, Sakura!" High Mistress snapped, but there was a nervous edge to her voice.

"It's alright," Mage Yuuhi said calmly. "Look at me."

Hesitantly, Sakura opened her eyes.

Her red eyes spun slowly.

A distant buzzing increased in Sakura's head. Her body sway, her vision crackling at the corner of her eyes. The beautiful woman flickered, filling her entire visual field, and all her thoughts were about her.

Instinctively, she held up her palms. She fought.

There was yard, somewhere, she knew. She tried to reach up and peel at the illusion, her hand clawing desperately. She touched nothing.

Mage Yuuhi grabbed her outstretched hand, and Sakura felt once more the mud clinging between her toes. She breathed heavily, stumbling. The grip around her wrist tightened.

"You were right, Anko. I'm taking her."

Mage Yuuhi released her hand.

Sakura looked around her.

The other children didn't move; they undulated like plants under the sun, an expression of utter bliss on their face.

There was no grass, no flowers.

-X-

At night, in her new home, Sakura sobered, out of exhaustion, out of despair.

Mage Yuuhi's mansion was bare, but it breathed, paper screens constantly changing their displayed scenery. It had a mind of its own, Sakura was convinced. It was haunted by a strange will that conjured up illusions of comfort. It had wrapped her in her old blankets from the orphanage. Yet, when Sakura buried her face in them, the fabric was soft, clean.

Sakura wasn't mesmerized, she was terrified.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Karui's face contorted in a blissful grimace, ugly, leaking mud and grass.

They didn't say good-bye.

She wanted to go home. She had no home.

Red Mage Yuuhi's laid a hand on her, and Sakura stilled, gasping silently. Would she turn into a plant under her touch? Would she weather away, losing her skin, her hair, the way flowers lost their petals?

Sakura cowered away from her hand, expecting anger, but Kurenai sat on her bed, gleaming in a soft red, her robes dissipating the thick darkness of the room.

"It's alright, Sakura. Let it out. Tomorrow, we begin your training."

She hummed softly, a forgotten song, and Sakura tensed. It was another trick of the house, she thought. A song from her past. A maternal voice.

No, she was an orphan. None of this was hers. It was all borrowed, the house, Red Mage Yuuhi's patience, her future.

She was nothing.

She was dirt.

Calmly, Mage Yuuhi untangled the bed sheets and fluffed the pillow, before standing up. She pointed at a package on a low table covered with scrolls.

"New robes for you. We'll burn the ones you're wearing tomorrow."

Red Mage Yuuhi left gleaming petals behind her.

Once Sakura had fallen asleep, they weathered, their lights extinguished.

-X-

Sakura hesitated before entering the room, her small hand gripping the screen too tightly.

Mage Yuuhi's red robes sparkled with magic, a liquid shapeless illusion. Her white obi turned green as she moved, tightening and loosening, matching Mage Yuuhi's intakes. She knelt by the opened sliding doors on the veranda, holding a cup of tea with two hands.

Mage Yuuhi smiled kindly at Sakura and nodded toward the cushion. With the motion, her jet black hair cascaded across her shoulder like ink. Like water. Like she was part of all the body of water across King's Land.

She was beautiful.

Her cheeks flushed with envy, Sakura knelt silently on the cushion, readjusting her pose so that it would mirror Mage Yuuhi's effortless elegance. She slowly drank her tea, turning head back toward the garden.

After a moment, Sakura's open palms on her thighs quivered, her fingers curling back slightly.

"It's uncomfortable compared to crossing your legs, isn't it?"

Sakura nodded stiffly not trusting her voice.

"Call me Kurenai-sensei. This is what I'll be in the next few years it takes to train you. Do you know what a Red Mage does?"

Sakura quickly shook her head.

"No matter, you'll learn," Mage Yuuhi's inclined her head, her red eyes drifting across the plants in her garden. "Tell me your story." Delicately, she set her empty cup back on the tray next to her.

"I'm a war orphan," Sakura said slowly, "but I still remember my parents. They died in the Third War of Magic. I miss my family, but I also miss my friends now."

"Good, this was the last time you ever told the truth about yourself. Red Mages are Masters and Mistresses of illusions. We all have the same story: We were born to enchant, but sometimes we must destroy. Do you understand?"

"Hai, Kurenai-sensei," Sakura said even if she didn't.

Inwardly, she saw the bliss in Karui's face. She saw flowers severing the earth, controlling it with pillars of creeper plants.

She saw power, a merciless silent violence.

And she saw beauty.

She was terrified, but she wanted to own it all. Her fists curled on her thighs.

"We will go to the palace, now," Kurenai-sensei announced. "I must tell the Mage Council I have found an apprentice."

"Shouldn't I wear something more..." Her words piled up thickly in her mouth. Sakura gulped with difficulty, the scents of moist earth and freshly cut flowers itching her nose, her throat. "Shouldn't I change first, Kurenai-sensei?"

'_Shouldn't I be as beautiful as you?_' she asked silently.

Kurenai-sensei stood up, and her robes shimmered more intensely, folding themselves around her body in a complex pattern.

"You're not a Mage yet, but I am. Come," Kurenai held up her hand, and Sakura reluctantly put her hand in hers.

She gasped, feeling her own robes moved across her skin. She looked up in wonder at Kurenai-sensei, and she smiled down at her.

"Don't be fooled," her voice was kind, but her red eyes sharpened. "Always let the others be fooled."

"Hai, Kurenai-sensei," Sakura muttered, and she loosened her grip around her hand.

They walked, and there bloomed empty illusions.

Sakura couldn't see it. Yet.

-X-

"It helps to make the void in your head," Kurenai-sensei said, blowing the steam above her cup.

She knelt on the veranda in the now familiar elegant pose, her robes folded neatly around her.

The sun was hot on the back of Sakura's neck, the plants in the garden providing no shade. She touched her neck, hesitantly touching her now short pink hair. Kurenai had cut off her hair to get rid of lice, her face grim, and her blade precise. Pink locks had then fallen like petals.

Her mind remained full of those petals. What was real? What was illusion? Sakura couldn't tell anymore.

She had been born to enchant.

She was an orphan.

She was an apprentice Red Mage.

She was lonely, lost and terrified.

Sakura touched her stiff hair, feeling how it curled on her scalp.

"Concentrate," Kurenai-sensei called after her more sternly.

Sakura closed her eyes again, slowing her breathing, shaping a flower with a mind. She winced. Roses? Did Kurenai-sensei ask her to create a rose, or a daisy? She couldn't remember.

In front of her, a flower sprouted, piercing the ground with difficulty. Sakura gasped, pain moulded in fire, magic flaring inside her, coaxing her mind into an oily discomfort. The flower caught the sunlight, tainted by dark spots, and leaking leaves.

Something tightened around her chest, and Sakura lost control. Her fingers quivered, numb, her heart deafening, rattling her ribcage.

The flower disintegrated quickly, green sparkles falling at her feet.

Sakura panted, her mind heavier, foggy. She wiped the sweat from her brow with her already drenched sleeve.

"Better, but your magic is too upfront and brash. You need to be more delicate," Kurenai-sensei waved her hand in the air, and creepers tangled themselves around her wrists and fingers. "See? Like this."

"I'm trying," she panted with tears in her voice.

"Listen to me, Sakura."

Sakura stared at where the flower had been. Her bottom lip quivered.

Kurenai-sensei laid a hand on her head, and Sakura startled. She always moved so quietly, so quickly, defying all the rules of reality. She shrugged off her hand. Maybe Kurenai-sensei never truly left her side.

"Relax your mind," Kurenai-sensei added, before walking back to the veranda. "Welcome the nature and forget yourself."

"Forget myself?" Sakura repeated slowly.

_She was an orphan. She was an orphan. __Shewasanorphan!_

"Stop holding back. You won't lose your mind. It's what you're afraid of, no?"

She bit her lip, shrugging noncommittally.

"Very well, if you want to pout," Kurenai-sensei laughed quietly. "Now, breathe in with nature. Mould the flower to your will. Any flower. It should be your own."

Sakura closed her eyes again, her hands joined.

Delicately, a sakura bloomed, crooked and too pale, but it moved sinuous, not leaking magic.

Sakura gasped, the sakura now frozen mid-air. Her kimono sank into her skin, its silk turning to biting steel. Its weight increased, unbearable, and she tumbled forward, her hands gripping at the dirt. She tried to shake off her robes, peel it off her skin, but Kurenai gripped her hand, her eyes flashing.

"All Red Mages learn this as the first rule: you must always tell apart reality and illusion. And to do that, you must never ever remove your enchanted robes when you are performing magic. Understood?"

"It hurts," Sakura croaked.

Kurenai-sensei looked at her with sadness, her grip loosening.

"All magic comes with a price," she muttered.

-X-

Kurenai-sensei didn't take her hand as she usually did.

They approached the carriage, dusk boiling above their heads, without talking, without touching.

Kurenai-sensei stopped close to the carriage, and she looked up to the sky, her movements tired and heavy.

"Some of our tasks for the Magic Council are cruel," she said quietly. "It's better you know now. We create, and we destroy." Her robes shrank into light travelling clothes, and Sakura could now see the short sword in her hand. The ruby encrusted in the handle turned black.

A shiver ran down Sakura's spine. Excitement or fear? She couldn't tell anymore.

She had power now.

"Get in, first," Kurenai-sensei ordered in a brisk voice.

Sakura got in quickly, her robes quivering slightly, changing from brown to light pink before the illusion broke. Her palms prickled.

"Concentrate, so you don't leak magic, Sakura."

She blushed, bowing her head.

The carriage dove into the country side, all the trees by Queen's road blending into one. Its movements lulled her into a dreamless sleep, until the sunlight was orange and piercing, at its peak. Groggily, Sakura rubbed at her eyes.

Kurenai-sensei's head was turned toward the window, her forehead creased with concentration.

"Don't make a sound and no matter what happens... Don't get out of the carriage."

Briskly, Kurenai-sensei got out of the carriage, her heels touching lightly the ground. Sakura leaned over her seat and watched her sensei as she walked up the main road.

She disappeared just as a man emerged from the forest, whistling.

The man stilled, his steps sinking on the ground. At his feet, dark trees grew, roots extending as crooked feet. Sakura could easily see through the illusion, now, but when Kurenai-sensei's body emerged from the tree, she was possessed again by the strength of the magic pulsing, animating leaves, trees and plants.

Kunerai-sensei was made of peeling bark when she pressed the sword to the man's neck. He smiled blissfully, and she cut off his head.

It thudded on the ground, the illusion faltering.

Then, it spread, swallowing the corpse.

Roses budded across the pool of blood, pulsing in a steady heartbeat.

Sakura's mouth was dry as Kurenai-sensei approached the carriage again.

With each step, the enchanted robes absorbed the man's blood.

Panting heavily, Kurenai-sensei leaned one palm on the carriage door. The ruby of her crest grew blinding. Her red eyes still spun although slower. Her robes drew reddened patterns, spidery scars, on her skin.

Kurenai didn't flinch, crackling and smoking like fire.

"We create, and we destroy," Kurenai-sensei repeated slowly. "Do you understand now?"

Sakura looked down at her own robes. Brown. Common. Dirt.

She nodded.

She understood.

She wanted to sparkle and gleam, and glide across nature. Own it. Despite the pain.

Saura touched her collarbone when her robes had sliced her. She stared at Kurenai-sensei's scars.

"This is the price to pay for this magic. This is the second rule, if you decide to stay with me, and pursue your training: your body belongs to the enchanted robes."

Sakura opened the door for her sensei.

She wanted to be indestructible before reality swallowed her.

-X-

_**Thanks for reading! :D Feedback like senseless comments are very much appreciated :)**_

_**Happy magic week, everyone!**_


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